''Merlínússpá'' (Prophecy of Merlin) is an Old Norse-Icelandic verse translation of '' Prophetiae Merlini'' in

Geoffrey of Monmouth Geoffrey of Monmouth ( la, Galfridus Monemutensis, Galfridus Arturus, cy, Gruffudd ap Arthur, Sieffre o Fynwy; 1095 – 1155) was a British cleric from Monmouth, Wales and one of the major figures in the development of British historiography ...

's ''

Historia regum Britanniae ''Historia regum Britanniae'' (''The History of the Kings of Britain''), originally called ''De gestis Britonum'' (''On the Deeds of the Britons''), is a pseudohistorical account of British history, written around 1136 by Geoffrey of Monmouth. I ...

''. It is notable for being the only translation of a foreign prose text into poetry in Old Norse-Icelandic literature and for being the earliest

Arthurian King Arthur ( cy, Brenin Arthur, kw, Arthur Gernow, br, Roue Arzhur) is a legendary king of Britain, and a central figure in the medieval literary tradition known as the Matter of Britain. In the earliest traditions, Arthur appears as a ...

text to have been translated in medieval Scandinavia. ''Merlínússpá'' is preserved in two consecutive parts preserved in the ''

Hauksbók Hauksbók (; 'Book of Haukr'), Reykjavík, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar AM 371 4to, AM 544 4to and AM 675 4to, is an Icelandic manuscript, now in three parts but originally one, dating from the 14th century. It was created by the Icelander Haukr E ...

'' (AM 544 4to) version of '' Breta sögur''. In both ''Hauksbók'' and the version of ''Breta sögur'' preserved in the manuscript AM 573 4to, the poems are attributed to

Gunnlaugr Leifsson Gunnlaugr Leifsson (died 1218 or 1219) was an Icelandic scholar, author and poet. He was a Benedictine monk at the Þingeyraklaustur monastery (Icelandic ''Þingeyrarklaustur'') in the north of Iceland. Many sources (including ''Þorvalds þáttur ...

. The poem is omitted in AM 573 4to, with the scribe noting that "many people know that poem". Gunnlaugr Leifsson wrote ''Merlínússpá'' around 1200. It is a close translation of the ''Prophetiae Merlini'' but also includes material from the ''Historia regum Britanniae.'' ''Merlínússpá'' is written in ''

fornyrðislag In prosody, alliterative verse is a form of verse that uses alliteration as the principal ornamental device to help indicate the underlying metrical structure, as opposed to other devices such as rhyme. The most commonly studied traditions of ...

'' verse form, which is also used in the prophetic poems ''

Völuspá ''Vǫluspá'' (also ''Völuspá'', ''Vǫlospá'' or ''Vǫluspǫ́''; Old Norse: 'Prophecy of the völva, a seeress'; reconstructed Old Norse: ) is the best known poem of the ''Poetic Edda''. It tells the story of the creation of the world and ...

'' and ''

Völuspá hin skamma ''Völuspá hin skamma'' (Old Norse: 'The Short Völuspá) is an Old Norse poem which survives as a handful of stanzas in ''Hyndluljóð'', in the ''Poetic Edda'', and as one stanza in the ''Gylfaginning'' section of Snorri Sturluson's ''Prose Edda ...

''. Although it is a close translation of its Latin exemplar, ''Merlínússpá'' uses imagery from Old Norse-Icelandic prose, which together with its meter give it "the semblance of an Eddic poem."

References

Arthurian literature in Old Norse Translations of Geoffrey of Monmouth

Further reading

References